At its 2012 Google I/O keynote, the company showed off its Nexus 7 tablet, the Jelly Bean mobile OS (Android 4.1) with Siri-like functions, the Nexus Q media streamer, as well as improvements to Google+.

By PCWorld Staff, PCWorld

Google kicked off its annual Google I/O developer keynote in a big way Wednesday by announcing a new version of the Android operating system, a new tablet, a media streamer, and Google+ updates, along with news on the company's Project Glass. Here's an overview of Google's announcements today.

"Google also announced the Android Platform Developer Kit, a toolkit for Android hardware makers. "PDK enables Android OEMs and chipmakers to innovate in parallel with Google," said Barra. The company also added new features to Google Play, the company's Android store, including app encryption for paid apps and free cloud-to-device messaging through a service called Google Cloud Messaging."

Day one of Google's developer extravaganza brought us a few things we were expecting like the Nexus 7 and the latest iteration of Android. But it also brought us an orb-shaped media streamer specially made for Google Play, and a high-flying demo of Google Glasses. Here's a rundown of the day's big stories.

"Google has announced the launch of a platform developer kit (PDK) that allows hardware creators to build on the Android platform. The announcement was made today during its I/O conference.

According to Google, this PDK will be released on time for Jelly Bean's launch. As entrepreneur Paul Allen noted in his liveblog about today's event, a beta version has already been available to a few Google partners over the last few weeks.

As for future major Android releases, a new PDK will be made available two months before each of them, TechRadar reports, pointing out that it will give manufacturers enough time to bring innovations to their devices and experiment with them.

While this news may not have caught your attention amid today's announcements, it matters more than you may think, as Google+ user Raveesh Bhalla emphasized:"